Of Mak's Bekal and Bentos

“Here Kak, your breakfast on the go…”

I was on my way out when Mak handed my breakfast to me – it’s nasi goreng (fried rice). On rainy mornings – like today - when she has to give her Taiji Quan session a miss, Mak would usually personally prepare breakfast for our family and pack mine.

“Mana ada mak lain yang tolong bekalkan macam ni”
(Do you think it’s easy to find mothers who still pack their working kid’s breakfast?)

I gave her a big smile.

I know it’s rare to find a retiree mother who would pack her grown up daughter’s breakfast and I’m so glad that Mak still does. My normal morning routine would be - wake up, pray Subuh, attend to Tok’s (my paternal grandma) medical needs, get ready, a round of salam with the elders (often just Ayah & Tok since Mak normally wouldn’t be back from her Taiji session yet), then go to work. I normally have my breakfast at work.

However, since my buddy Tan moved to another Ministry, I have yet to find another consistent breakfast partner (and Tan has yet to find a good nasi lemak in Kota Kinabalu). When Tan was around, we always had breakfast together – either we first bought something at one pakcik’s stall by the road selling some kuih and nasi lemak or just grabbed something at the canteen and sat down, sharing stories and news over breakfast.

Now, most days, my breakfast consists of two pieces of Jacob’s Sunlife breakfast biscuit and a mug of hot chocolate/Milo. However, on days when Mak packed up breakfast for me, I would bring it down to the canteen, buy a glass of teh tarik and sit down with a group of senior officers. Either Ms. Chan, Puan Bad or Cik Kiah would then checked out what my Mak or Bibik cooked up for me that day. And I would proudly showed them what I would be having – be it nasi goreng, mee goreng, peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich or whatever else Mak (or sometimes, Bibik) prepared.

And always, one of them would note almost enviously - “You’re so lucky to have a Mak who would still bother to pack breakfast for you”

I would gave them a big smile.

I’d like to think of my packed breakfast as a bento of some sort. Ask any Japanese and most would agree that bentos – Japanese lunch boxes – represent lots of maternity love.

School kids compare their lunches to find out who has the most attractive, creative, colourful arrangement. Anybody with a sandwich, a fruit, a packed drink and cookies in brown bag would look sad about not having a bento to open. Some lucky kids who open their bentos to find Hello Kitty/ Pikachu/Mickey Mouse/Pooh moulded rice ball with features cut out of seaweed, spring veggies, fried egg yolks, fish cakes and fried chicken – would be the envy of the class. Mother-child confrontations over a run of bad bento days are not unusual – the child would point out that girl’s bento was so much colourful, that boy’s bento was so much creative, his name written out in ketchup over an omelette with lots and lots of ingredients.

The joy of opening and savouring scrumptious bentos are also experienced by Japanese men who prefer homemade lunches and lucky enough to be married to gracious and accommodating wives. And I heard that recently a growing numbers of Japanese single working women are also proud of carrying and consuming self-prepared meals called my o-bento. So serious the Japanese are about their bentos – they even have different bentos for different time of the year. There’s the hanami-bento after the sakura viewing season in April, then the undokai bento for sports day in May, followed by the summertime bento for summer school and the akino kouraku bento during autumn excursion in October.

As for me – while Mak have never moulded any of the fried rice or noodle to resemble any famous cartoon characters or assemble colourful garnishing around them – my breakfast bekal remains an unspoken message of Mak’s love.